Following the arrests of multiple college basketball coaches, and the FBI’s revelation of its two-year investigation into bribery and fraud involving top-rated recruits, the acclaimed screenwriter and director assumed an unimaginable bombshell would define one of the biggest scandals in sports history.

When Shelton heard that agents and shoe companies had funneled money to players and their families, he learned nothing he didn’t already know, having long ago portrayed the dark side of the sport in the 1994 film, “Blue Chips” — starring Nick Nolte and Shaquille O’Neal — which centers on the fictional Western University similarly luring players, with large sums of money and lavish gifts.

“I thought ‘Blue Chips’ was way out of date when I wrote it, and I wrote it 10 years before it got made,” Shelton told The Post by phone Tuesday.

“My reaction was the same as what Captain Renault’s reaction is when somebody says there might be gambling in ‘Casablanca’ – ‘I’m shocked, shocked!’ – I mean, come on, folks, this is how it’s always been. I’m not saying it’s how it should be. I’m not even saying the right guys are gonna go to the jail or the wrong guys are gonna go to jail, but this is the world. Everybody knows it.

“I thought this is old news. Nobody cares.”

Shelton, who used former Nike, Adidas and Reebok executive Sonny Vaccaro as an unofficial adviser for the script, has heard different versions of these stories for years.

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In college basketball, the players and coaches change, but little else does, largely because of the incompetence of the NCAA, according to Shelton, a former minor league baseball player who also wrote and directed “Bull Durham,” “White Men Can’t Jump” and “Tin Cup.”

“Light needs to be shined on this. I wish the NCAA did it, but I think they’re just a lousy organization,” Shelton said. “I’m sorry the FBI had to be the ones, and I hope a lot of semi-innocent people don’t get their lives destroyed, but why hasn’t the NCAA shined a lot on this, cleaned it up and gotten it out in the open? How do we legislate so that private enterprise can’t take 14-year-old kids and steer them down roads that might not be good for them? These are morally egregious things happening where kids are exploited.

“The problem with the NCAA is they always go after the jaywalkers. The hypocrisy and the lack of consistency of what they call egregious crimes. … What bothers me is that everybody is shocked, and the NCAA always pretends that they don’t know what’s going on.”

Shelton, 72, is glad to see that players now receive stipends, in addition to scholarships, but he doesn’t believe anything has been done to prevent another future scandal, including the FBI investigation.

“I don’t know how you’re gonna prevent some dad from taking $10,000 in unmarked $20 bills in a paper bag left at a Pizza Hut by a recruiter,” Shelton said. “Will things change? I doubt it because cash is involved. The only way for change is if the NCAA ever gets real, and I don’t think that’s possible.”